29 Simple Ways to Become a More Environmentally Friendly Freelancer (+ Help Us Donate $500 to Charity!)
The great thing about being a freelancer is how much control you have over everything. There are no bosses to tell you what company policy is or how you should do things. That means YOU have not only the ability but the responsibility for your work life. Today for Blog Action Day we’re going to look at some simple ways that freelancers can make their work-life more environmentally friendly. Because remember it’s the small steps that produce the big, sustainable changes.
Listed below are a ton of ways that you can become a more environmentally friendly freelancer. And because we *REALLY* want FreelanceSwitch readers to really take this on and work towards being more environmentally friendly, we are pledging to donate $1 to charity for every reader who comments here as a pledge to take on any one of the suggestions below (or their own). Just write what you’re taking on in a comment and we’ll put $1 in your name towards the Blog Action Day charities up to a total of $500.
There are lots of really easy suggestions here that are completely free and don’t take much effort at all. So make today the day to change one habit for the better.
Print Design Jobs for Clients
- Always offer a recycled option for printing to clients (or even better, only offer recycled options)!
- Design standard size printed items to minimize paper offcuts.
- Implement a white border in your designs so you don’t need bleed.
- For packaging design jobs, find packaging solutions that require minimal materials.
- Use thinner paper stocks for stationery.
- Avoid laminating paper.
- Encourage clients to use smaller brochures, flyers, books and so on for large print runs to avoid using more paper than necessary
Bonus:
Designcanchange.org: Beautiful site and a beautiful idea. Lean why you as a designer need to get involved.
101 Things Designers Can Do To Change The Earth: Here are some fantastic ideas for designers to make a difference – and amazingly there’s no filler.
Around the Office
- Collect any A4 paper which is printed on one side and wire bind it to use as note paper.
- When you need to print something, print on both sides of a piece of paper.
- Put two bins by your desk – one for recyclables and one for waste.
- Recycle your printer cartridges.
- Turn off your computer when you finish work for the night.
- Buy a video camera and go to a virtual meeting on Skype rather than driving to physical ones.
- Send and receive virtual faxes rather than paper ones.
- Send your invoices via email rather than posting them.
- Install energy efficient lighting around the office
- In summer if you can make do without air conditioning, open a window instead!
- In winter, reduce your heating and wear a little extra clothing instead
Change Your Client’s Habits
- Ask your clients to join One Percent For The Planet and give a small portion of their sales to environmental charities.
- Whenever you have the chance encourage clients to make environmentalism part of their brands. Show them that this can be an asset to their business rather than a burden, and that consumers react very positively to companies that take environmental positions.
- Encourage clients to run web marketing campaigns rather than print ones where the end result will be much the same (because the end result in paper waste will be *very* different)
General Ideas
- Become carbon neutral.
- Upload large files rather then sending them on disc. If you don’t have FTP, then you can use a service like DropSend or YouSendIt.
- Take on charity projects for an environmental not-for-profit.
- Join One Percent For The Planet yourself and give a small portion of your sales to environmental charities.
- Use Concept Share to cut down on faxes and printing
- For photographers, send digital PDF proofs, instead of print outs
- Whenever you can give things away instead of throwing them. For example old computer equipment, magazines, furniture. Rather than producing rubbish, see if someone else might get even more use out of your old things. You’d be surprised how one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
There’s our list, please do take on some of these changes and let’s take a stand!
I know for our own little office, Collis has taken on switching things off (he’s terrible at it currently) and I am going to organise our office to have a more thorough recycling system in place.
What are you going to do?
And Don’t Forget …
If you’d like to donate to one of the charities, you can use this PayPal button and we’ll add your contribution to the FreelanceSwitch one, we’ve already had a few donations come in! –
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I have decided to do more then jsut one these are the ones i have choosen
1. Collect any A4 paper which is printed on one side and wire bind it to use as note paper.
2. When you need to print something, print on both sides of a piece of paper.
3. Put two bins by your desk – one for recyclables and one for waste.
4. Recycle your printer cartridges.
5. Turn off your computer when you finish work for the night.
6. In summer if you can make do without air conditioning, open a window instead!
7. In winter, reduce your heating and wear a little extra clothing instead
8. Send your invoices via email rather than posting them
I think it is great how FreelanceSwitch is doing this. I have always been wondering what things i could do to be more enviromentally friendly!
WTG! Great topic and one close to my heart. Check out my topic;
http://www.butterscotchmartinigirls.com/?p=397
Bravo, FreelanceSwitch!
I’m already doing a few of these things, but here are a few more I pledge to adopt:
- Collect any A4 paper which is printed on one side and wire bind it to use as note paper.
- When you need to print something, print on both sides of a piece of paper.
- Install energy efficient lighting around the office.
- In summer if you can make do without air conditioning, open a window instead!
- In winter, reduce your heating and wear a little extra clothing instead.
Thanks for encouraging environmental responsibility and for giving readers the tools to make the switch!
“Carbon neutral?” You mean carbon offsets? Sure by now you’ve read about the third world families who are paid a pittance to forgo or manually produce their electricity so rich Americans and Europeans can live in guilt-free comfort.
Here’s another sordid tale: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1599714,00.html
That is really great, I think this is a great resource to designers. We are offering some free surprise seeds for a pingback. Come check us out at hellyeahdude.com, and contribute to your earth by planting some seeds!
I already actually already do a some of this “by default” as it seemed like the logical thing to do.. The things I don’t I hereby pledge to attempt to start doing as soon as I can!
These are the ones that came to mind from the above lists that I already do:
# Collect any A4 paper which is printed on one side and wire bind it to use as note paper.
# Recycle your printer cartridges.
# Install energy efficient lighting around the office
# Send your invoices via email rather than posting them.
# Upload large files rather then sending them on disc. If you don’t have FTP, then you can use a service like DropSend or YouSendIt.
I’m going to start with setting up better paper recycling in my home office area. We’ll see where it goes from there.
Great article! Living in such a green city as Portland, OR, we ritually do these things every day. But since I make a living as a photographer, I burn many CDs for clients that do not have ftp options. I will check out DropSend and YouSendIt! I will also turn off my computer at night…something I don’t always do.
Leaving a small footprint on the environment is always on my mind. I do practice a lot of what is listed above and then some.
A few more tips:
Only shower when you absolutely must. When working from home, you don’t really need to shower everyday.
Only flush number 2. Collect the number 1’s in the porcelain throne until number 2 joins them … lol, seriously.
I clean my office twice a year and donate any extra paper samples, office supplies, fabric scraps, magazines, etc. to an organization like the The Waste Not Center [http://wastenotcenter.org/] that collects unused art and office supplies and makes them available to teachers and artists at an affordable price. I also encourage my clients to do the same!
Some great ideas, here is one that I would add: Cancel all of your print magazine subscriptions. Check to see if they offer an electronic version or check your local library to see if they carry it. You can always just scan it at the book store too.
I actually include some examples of things like this that I do on my website, on a page called “World Citizen.” If you’re interested: http://tuleydocs.com/worldcitizen/worldcitizen.html
A note worthy action!
I will do my best to follow those examples as much as I can.
Some I already do and others I pledge to start doing.
1. Always offer a recycled option for printing to clients (or even better, only offer recycled options)!
2. For packaging design jobs, find packaging solutions that require minimal materials.
3. Avoid laminating paper.
4. Put two bins by your desk – one for recyclables and one for waste.
5. Recycle your printer cartridges.
6. Turn off your computer when you finish work for the night.
7. Send and receive virtual faxes rather than paper ones.
8. Send your invoices via email rather than posting them.
9. Whenever you have the chance encourage clients to make environmentalism part of their brands. Show them that this can be an asset to their business rather than a burden, and that consumers react very positively to companies that take environmental positions.
10. Upload large files rather then sending them on disc. If you don’t have FTP, then you can use a service like DropSend or YouSendIt.
11. Whenever you can give things away instead of throwing them. For example old computer equipment, magazines, furniture. Rather than producing rubbish, see if someone else might get even more use out of your old things. You’d be surprised how one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
I’ve just posted these resources on one of my blogs for B.A.D. about some websites which will help you offload your unwanted items to other people who might want them:
1) http://www.Freecycle.org
2) http://www.Switchplanet.com
3) http://www.Neighborrow.com
4) http://www.Swaptree.com
As we work remotely overseas, we already use a lot of the online services such as online faxing, emailing invoices, skype meetings etc.
However I am pledging as from today, to sweat in the caribbean heat & risk the voracious mosquitoes by working from our verandah, instead of switching the air conditioning on and staying inside.
P.S. It is harder than it sounds when you constantly drip sweat on to your keyboard and have to keep wiping it off
Firstly, a big congratulations to you, Collis and Leo for making this happen – and let’s hope that the people listen to what we have to say.
I’m pledging to upload all files online instead of transferring them by disc. I’m pleased to say I do this most of the time anyway, but I just want you to donate some money on my behalf
We’re trying to do more and more around the house to help the planet. Already by being a freelancer and working from home I don’t have to drive the 70 miles round trip to work anymore!
We recycle as much as possible and what we can’t recycle we sell or give away.
I’m doing a lot of these things already, but there are a few things I need to work on.
1. Collect any A4 paper which is printed on one side and wire bind it to use as note paper.
2. Put two bins by your desk – one for recyclables and one for waste
3. Give things away instead of throwing them out
My client’s been in business for 35 years and have yet to acquire any recycling bins for their massive office. No idea why.
I’ll put that at the top of my list to try and get bins for their entire complex and have them regularly recycle all of their paper and plastic waste.
This is one that I will be doing every day, starting today:
5. Turn off your computer when you finish work for the night.
I’m also going to start putting notes on the computer rather than wasting notepaper. Besides wasting paper, it will also help keep my desk clutter free!
I already do the following and promise to continue to do them. I’ve also offered some additional tips.
When you need to print something, print on both sides of a piece of paper. (duplex printer makes this really easy)
Turn off your computer when you finish work for the night. (or at least make sure it goes into sleep mode)
Upload large files rather then sending them on disc. If you don’t have FTP, then you can use a service like DropSend or YouSendIt. (you could also just send the changes you’ve made instead of the whole thing)
Send your invoices via email rather than posting them. (so much better, and ask your clients, banks, etc to send you statements via email or the web)
Great job, guys. I talked about a few of these in my own post, but the biggest thing for me is learning to turn things off. Turn off the computer, turn off the lights, turn off the fan, turn off the heater. Lightbulb by lightbulb it might not seem like a big deal, but all together the impact of the little actions can be mind-blowing.
Like others, I already do some of these, and will continue to.
1. Collect any A4 paper which is printed on one side to use as note paper.
2. Turn off your computer when you finish work for the night.
3. Send your invoices via email rather than posting them.
4. Upload large files rather then sending them on disc.
5. Whenever you can give things away instead of throwing them.
Need to start doing some of the others, and will do; recycling ink printing both sides etc.
I’m all about recycling any paper I use. All of my contracts and faxes are digital too.
Everyone can make a difference! If you are passionate about stopping global warming and the environment you should check out this website http://www.nvisoncfl.com. Change to CFLs a great way for individual people to really make a difference! You should also check out this site http://www.youtube.com/user/helpourworld for more ideas on how to help our world!
A cold office and a sweater. Two bits.
Well, this comment is mostly to support the drive for $500.
But I have also written about some ways you can help your personal world be more environmentally aware. http://www.israeljernigan.com/today-is-blog-action-day-the-environment
Good job for your effort in helping save earth one step at a time.
I’m putting bins by my desk, not that I throw things on the floor that is, but because I’m going to recycle!
I go into greater detail some of the things I’m doing in my Blog Action Day post but recently we’ve switched to an energy provider that uses more greenpower and I’ve also just purchased abatement certificates to offset my hosting company’s web server carbon usage.
I also switch off my monitor and put my PC to sleep if I leave it for a while (but am coming back to it before the end of the day), as well as switching off appliances around the office/house that would otherwise be on standby; and send nearly all my correspondence via email, FTP etc.
I’m working for a City Government, and we are currently consolidating physical servers using VMware. We are aiming to get 3 virtual servers running on the one physical server which should save us a decent amount of energy, as well as the cost of buying and running new servers.
Virtual servers are the way of the future!
If only I can convince my boss to let me telecommute….
I have the whole house on “Green Power” – including the office. This isn’t very expensive (maybe $6 more than regular power) and is offered by most energy providers in Australia.
I am hereby pledging to print my own business cards and stationary on recycled paper (when I get to designing them!) and not just whatever “recycled” paper the printer stocks, but proper, post-consumer waste recycled stuff.
I also pledge to shower with a friend whenever possible
)
I already try to stick to many of these ideas (especially the paper-reducers, I’m a PDF junkie!) but I’ll try to make these two my highest priorities:
10. In summer if you can make do without air conditioning, open a window instead!
11. In winter, reduce your heating and wear a little extra clothing instead
10 should make a huge impact, since I live in Australia!
I’m already doing many of the ‘around the office’ but there are some extras:
- Avoid the printer at all costs.
- Don’t wire-bind your scrap paper, just clip it together with a big bulldog clip. No need to waste a binding.
- Turn off your computer at night *at the wall* and eliminate the use of standby power (turn your TV, microwave and other appliances off while you’re at it)
- Use natural lighting where possible. No need for energy efficient if you have a window
I love your tips.
I was a fan of disposables: Plates, bowls, cups, spoons, knives, forks, cans, bottles, jars, cartons, wrappers, tupperware products, shaving razors, paper and plastic bags. After I have read about the amount of garbage we are generating it made me more conscience of ways in where I can reduce or recycle my household items. I now love buying already recycled items, which are not only cheap but they work as fine. And on my Earth Hip to do list I will now purchase my one time permanent shaving razor, which even works better then the disposables ones.
Happy recycling!
I like the idea of the virtual fax, I think that I am going to use that one
Does it count if I continue doing things I’m already doing?
I do the following:
-Recycle printer cartridges
-Turn off my computer at night
-Open windows in summer rather than using air conditioning
-Turn the heater down in winter–particularly overnight–and put on a sweater and/or an extra blanket.
-Use energy efficient lighting around the office–and the home.
@Jeanne, I say why not! It seems that we’re not going to hit our $500 threshold anyhow, and to be honest I quite wanted to give that away
Perhaps we’ll have a late surge of commentors!
Most of these things I do already, but I hereby pledge that the next lightbulbs I buy will be energy efficient, not “standard”, and that I will from now on always suggest that my clients use proper recycled paper for printing.
I do a bunch of these already like double-sided printing, recycling paper etc. I’m about to buy a bunch of lightbulbs now for the whole house though….
Great blog!
If the economics don’t work, recycling efforts won’t either.
Http://LivePaths.com blogs about innovative entrepreneurs that make money selling recycled items, provide green services or help us reduce our dependency on non renewable resources. These includes some very cool Green online ventures, great new technologies, startups and investments opportunities.
In the office kitchen recycle all cans, bottles and plastics. See if anyone wants to take the food scraps home for the compost.
Really nice ideas in there good to see everyone give back to the enviroment , i currently do my fair share of those but i am thinking off joining this 1% for the planet
I am ecouraging all my clients to use e-mail marketing rather than postcards and direct mail campaigns. E-mail is cost effective, efficient and environmental!
For most items I print, I often print 2 pages of a document on a single side of A4 using draft mode. When combined with the other tip of printing on both sides you can get 4 pages to a single sheet of paper.
Apart from a single server, my entire office runs off laptops. Until recently, we were renting out half of our office space to an accountancy firm. They had less employees than us, most part time too, and their energy consumption with 2 times ours – partly because their IT bod told them they must leave all their computers on overnight for backups – which they took to mean the monitors as well – grrrr.
From this list, I’ll be trying to recycle more and to get out clients to accept electronic invoices.
A great site to contibute to the world environment.
I do follow following things and noe planning to propose the same to my managment to give regular class to all employees about how to save our environment which ultimately savs your pocket too:
1) Alway recycle papers i use
Take “SHORT” showers to save water and electricity to heat water
2) Use both side of paper.
3) Have seperate bins for recycle paper on my table.
4) Use energy effecient lites to save energy
5) Use of natural lights during day time rather than electricity.
6) Use of fan rather than AC as much as possible.
7) ALWAYS shut doen my computer at night.
9) Use of Public transport few days a month.
There are many small things and 1 by 1 it counts a lot.
This is great. I’m looking for more ways to be environmentally friendly!
really helpful advice, you should publisise these ideas more.
Going to do these ones and i’ll try for some others too!
When you need to print something, print on both sides of a piece of paper.
Put two bins by your desk – one for recyclables and one for waste.
Recycle your printer cartridges.
Turn off your computer when you finish work for the night.
This is really resourceful article, especially helpful for small business owners trying to save money while going green. In addition to turning the computer off when the work day is over, you’d be surprised how much energy can be saved if you actually unplug the power cord. Even the computer is turned off, unplugging the power cord can save a lot of “vampire” electric costs. One easy way we save money is using Online Fax instead of having an actual fax machine with paper, toner, etc. There are definitely a lot of options, but I’ve found FaxitFast.com to be extremely efficient as I get inbound faxes directly to my email in PDF and can send out invoices directly from my email account. Plus it’s less than six dollars per month and it includes a dedicated toll-free fax number.
There are definitely a lot of easy ways to help cutback on energy usage, but as someone mentioned above, it really is the little things that count.
This website is soo helpful this helped me on all of my homework
Thx
Lilly xxx
thanks for your tips
Hey.
I shower daily, and when I do I shower with the light off. Might sound silly but it makes me feel like I’m doing my bit for the environment. I also switch all electricity off every time I leave my place.
I’m doing a power point project for a college course that I’m in and your website helped me out a lot. My class is sports facilities management and my project is:
You are the facility manager of a sports facility of your choice. Upper management has asked for you to come up with future plans to renovate or rebuild your facility making it a “green facility”. Come up with 8-10 ways to make your facility green and your reasoning behind each one. Use your imagination, money is no object!
I got some ideas for the playing field and construction from the internet and my readings but I never thought about the small stuff we can do day to day at the office. Thanks a lot for the help!